JPD: Parkinson's patients, small subcortical volume, or suggest gait disorder

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a variety of balance and gait disorders

These obstacles, combined with impaired postural responses, lead to impaired balance and gait, falls, and poor quality of life

However, balance and gait may be independent functions and may be controlled by different brain regions

Although neuroimaging studies have shown that both subcortical and cortical areas are affected in Parkinson’s disease, either due to changes in volume, loss of neurotransmitters or changes in functional connections, the loss of cortical and subcortical gray matter volume is related to specific The relationship between type of balance and gait disorder is unclear

In this way, Anjanibhargavi Ragothamana of Oregon Health and Science University et al.

Specifically, they predict that the damage of balance and gait in different areas of PD patients will be related to the atrophy of different brain regions

The study explored the relationship between ventricle size, global and regional brain volume, and 112 objective measures in the four areas of balance and gait

They included the regional volume of the brain structure images of 96 PD and 50 control subjects

The multiple linear regression model evaluated the relationship and interaction between the brain volume and balance/gait of PD and the control group, controlled for gender and age, and adjusted for multiple comparisons

They found that in PD patients, smaller brainstem and subcortical gray matter volumes were related to larger swing areas, but not in healthy controls

In contrast, in the healthy control group, a larger ventricle volume was associated with a smaller APA, but not in PD patients

The study showed that smaller subcortical and brainstem volume may be an indicator of standing balance dysfunction in PD patients, and enlarged ventricles may be related to the difficulty in gait initiation in healthy elderly people